Who fears making a roti?

In Durga Venkatesan’s Garam Roti, kitchens become stages and the roti transforms into a metaphor for women’s fears, expectations, and unheard voices

- ADITHI REENA AJITH

WHEN one says roti, images of mothers and grandmothers rolling out smooth dough into perfect circles onto hot tawas come to mind. But roti has never been just bread. Its perfect circle has long mirrored the idea of the ‘perfect’ woman — expected to serve endlessly. But not every roti turns out well. Some burn, some remain pale at the edges, revealing the quiet pressure to meet an unspoken standard.

This tension becomes the centrepoint of Garam Roti, a solo performance by Bengaluru artist and theatre-maker Durga Venkatesan. The play, which premiered in Bengaluru in November 2024 and will be performed in Delhi this Sunday at OddBird Theatre, began with a discomfort that refused to leave her alone: not knowing how to make rotis.

“It is still the same thought,” she admits, “but with that, I started exploring the concept of what women fear and how it circles back to the kitchen, where women are supposed to belong.”

Kitchen dilemmas